Quebec

The employment rate in Quebec reaches a record high

• Over the past three decades Quebec's employment rate has been lower than the national average. However, in 2003, the province's employment rate reached 60.0%—the third record-breaking year in a row. Job growth in Quebec has been strong since 1996, averaging 2.3% per year.
• From 2002 to 2003, employment grew by 57,000 (+1.6%) in Quebec, with almost half the gains in the health care and social assistance sector. The number of jobs also increased in other sectors, such as transportation and warehousing, educational services, construction, and accommodation and food services. However, these gains were partially offset by the loss of 17,000 jobs in manufacturing, driven by declines in aerospace and motor vehicle manufacturing employment.
• Recent gains in employment appear to have encouraged more Quebecers to join the work force in 2003 as the labour force participation rate reached a high of 66.0%—only 1.5 percentage points below the national average, the smallest recorded gap since 1976. The rising participation rate likely contributed to the rising unemployment rate in the province, which jumped to 9.1% in 2003, up half a percentage point from 2002.

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